


Cantus In Memoriam

by Charliesmusings



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Angst, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Me posting this knowing it'll probably be nerfed when titans comes out like-, look I got emotional and decided that's y'all's problem now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27647057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charliesmusings/pseuds/Charliesmusings
Summary: Skrael is the villain. Villains lose.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	Cantus In Memoriam

**Author's Note:**

> I offer you the song that inspired this work; listening to it isn't necessary, but it sure does set the mood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KImKBJ1jQfU

He cannot find Bellroc. His vision is flickering, blurred at the edges, swaying and swimming, and his head is pounding. He pants, and steam rolls from his lungs. His staff lies on the ground at his feet, which he staggers on, a vicious, caged glint in his eyes— he is off-kilter and looks it. Something within him had snapped moments ago, splintered in his chest, only he does not face what it is. He is not even sure he can remember what it is. There is something behind him, something— …magma, he thinks. Magma and black feathers.

He looks down at his hand— more black feathers, clenched in his fists so hard that he’d nearly broken the shafts into pieces. They bend at horrid angles between his fingers. He is ravenous, but he cannot remember why. Distantly, his mind offers _revenge_ , but he does not think that is right. He has no one to avenge. He is not alone. He will never be alone. He cannot be. Where there is ice, there is fire, and anything else cannot be. It cannot.

 _It’s not possible!_ He is not sure if his brain or his throat burns as that thought enters the world; he does not know if he screamed aloud, or if his mind’s volume is deafening.

He does not know…

He does not know.

He cannot… not know.

What to do.

_Without them._

His maw is wide and sharp, as he roars, animalistic, eyes whiting out entirely with the ice blue of the magic that shrieks around him, around his enemies, sparking and crackling, making the very air around him feel like shattered glass, the smell of ozone potent and startling.

Claws clatter against each other as his staff snaps back into his hands, pulled up by the very energy he is expending. His head is impossibly loud, now, ferocious and whistling, a hurricane in his ears, as he readies his spell, drawing in and drawing in and drawing in, building up and up and up; the maggots are cowering now, like the filth they are, and he is ready to turn them to _dust_ , when there is an impact—

but it is not his own.

It is a sharpened, defined blast, raw, and so powerful that he thinks that he must be lucky to have witnessed it, lucky that it did not tear a hole in reality’s fabric. His eyes are shut— _and when had they done that without his permission?_ — but behind them, he thinks he can see blue, purple… _green_. So much green. _Nothing_ but green anymore; he is being enveloped in green, overwhelmed by green, choked by green— _are there leaves in his esophagus_? There must be; he can only feel roots, dirt, the full extent of the living earth, and it _hurts._ It echoes, splinters through his bones, bouncing and throbbing and aching, and he feels his nerves on fire, and there is nothing he can do but take it.

On the horizon, so, so distantly, he feels his back hit something solid, and feels his mouth open in a soundless gasp— or perhaps it is closer to a wheeze. A helpless sound, it is.

For a long, content moment, everything ceases.

There is only blackness. Only a fuzzy feeling, one that masks whatever is clawing behind it, and it is all he can do to chase the sensation as far as it will allow him.

And then his vision snaps to, and nothing is even spinning anymore, and somehow, that is worse.

The world, his eyes, the way everything looks— it is as if someone has turned up the focus, turned up the noise, turned up the everything, the intensity, the pain… he rolls to his front, undignified at best. On his elbows, he is finally able to turn his glare back onto the ones that hit him.

He should be angry at the green.

It is only blue he can muster up anger for, and somewhere deep inside his dead heart, he ever-so-gently waves to the knowledge that it is the icier blue at which his anger burns. Not as gently, however, he glares at Hisirdoux Casperan.

“You…” he rasps. “What did you-?” He is cut off by his own watery cough.

The stupid wizard has the audacity to look pityingly upon him, “We did what we had to do, to protect the realm.”

Skrael snarls, gnashing his teeth as the boy steps forward, pushing himself up to sit on his left flank, the heels of his hands buried in the cool dirt beneath him, and he cannot bear to even bother being upset that he is staining his clothes, “ _You_ are shattering the realm, _you disgusting_ _vermin_ — _you worm!”_ his voice is raw and wet, “ _You will lose magic altogether if nothing is done! If you kill me! Magic will_ die _without me! Without—”_ He does not say their name, but he does not have to, as he watches his infernal enemy’s eyes flick from him to the heat that he cannot feel behind him anymore, that he knows should be there, but isn’t.

Casperan looks back at Skrael, and his eyes are somber, and it infuriates the wind spirit, as the master wizard crouches, a few feet distant. He tilts his head, “You really loved them, didn’t you?”

Skrael’s nose is a wolf’s when it bears fang, as he growls, “Why is this relevant?”

“Do you want to see them again?”

Skrael is stunned silent for a long, long time. His eyes drift from the human wizard’s, to his stupid shoes, to the ground underneath him, to the zone between them, and finally, to his own lap.

He does not look up when he nods.

…In the end, the whiteness that comes after is not so bad. The dissolution of himself is even better. He thinks he feels heat when it happens. He thinks a hand brushes his when it happens. He thinks he can feel a candle go out when it happens.

He thinks he can feel balance, when it happens.


End file.
